Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

Nov. 19, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:20:53

1512 Troll Spotting - A Conversation

A man who trolled Freedomain Radio pretty hard apologizes and opens up about his history...

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Hello? Hello. How's it going?
	It's going very well, thank you.
	Good, good, good. So...
	I appreciate the email that you sent.
	I know that must have been not a lot of fun or a very easy thing to do at all.
	But, you know, more important...
	It took me probably about an hour to write.
	Right. No, but, you know, kudos to you.
	I mean, if...
	If people haven't had to do something like that, and of course everybody has had to do something like that at some point in their life, because we all go off the rails a little bit, but anybody who hasn't yet done that in their life probably doesn't appreciate just what a difficult thing that is to do.
	So I really wanted to just say that there's a huge amount of respect in me for that kind of turnaround, and that's a huge amount to be proud of, in my opinion.
	Thank you very much. So, did you want to read the email that you sent me, I guess it was about a week ago, something like that?
	Yes, about a week ago.
	Okay, how does that? Is that okay?
	I can go ahead and do that.
	Sure. One second, my throat is dry.
	No problem.
	Subject and apology.
	Thank you.
	Good morning, Steph. For many months now, this has been in the back of my mind.
	I've lost count of just how many, and it's taken me a long time to write this.
	I feel anxious, and I almost want to cry.
	Several months ago, I sent you an email asking for a therapist recommendation for a friend in the Toronto area who was suicidal.
	I patted that email with manipulations.
	I went on a righteous tirade about someone else who I know.
	Whom, in our last conversation together, called into question things that I believed in which brought to the foreground the doubt and anxiety and fear of arrogance and my inability to defend myself.
	I believe there was something else in that email, but I don't remember what it was, nor do I have a copy of it.
	I should never have attempted to place such a burden upon your shoulders in any way, nor asked of you.
	Oh, crap. Did this drop?
	Pardon? Thomas left.
	Um, hello?
	You hung up. Oh, it...
	Well, it doesn't say the call ended.
	It doesn't? No. Oh, someone else...
	Oh, jeez. Okay, maybe it's just...
	Oh, crap.
	Ah, shit. You're still on.
	I'm sorry. Can you hear me? Oh, yes.
	Yes, I can. So sorry.
	Go ahead. Do you need me to start that over?
	Was it still recording? No, no.
	It's totally fine. My apologies.
	I mute the server, but I clicked on the wrong Skype window and muted myself, so I apologize for that, but please continue.
	Oh, I see. Oh, yes.
	Thank you. I should never have attempted to place such a burden upon your shoulders in any way, nor asked of you such a favor without having a relationship with you personally or any sort of reciprocity that is to be justly expected.
	It was wholly inappropriate and I sincerely and from the bottom of my heart apologize to you.
	I also have a second apology.
	Several months ago, I, username SomeWeirdGayGuy, was blocked from your YouTube channel.
	I was not even then.
	I was not sure even then when I was blocked, but I think I was blocked for comments in a true news video.
	I believe it was in the late to mid-30s of the series, possibly 36 or 34.
	Two numbers, 6 and 4.
	I usually mix up when trying to remember things.
	I made many comments on the video.
	I can't remember what they were, but I remember being embarrassed and ashamed by them shortly thereafter.
	A common experience for me on YouTube.
	They were unnecessary and disruptive.
	They were insulting to you, to the people I responded to, and myself.
	And I deeply and sincerely apologize for my actions and any resulting irritations.
	I was going to close here, but I remembered something else.
	I was sitting in the chat during a Sunday call-in show and I was doing sort of what I was doing on YouTube, saying stupid things and being disruptive.
	I came in near the end of the show, thankfully, and didn't do much damage, but it's the principle of the matter that I feel I should say something to you about it.
	I sincerely and deeply apologize to you for the wrong that I've done.
	Thank you for taking the time to read this.
	And I was, I mean...
	Thrilled and impressed to get such an email.
	I mean, I thought it's wonderful.
	You know, it's the kind of thing that you always hope that people are going to be able to achieve, but it's very rare.
	And I think because of that, you should be immensely proud of that recognition.
	It has nothing to do with me. Fundamentally, it's about your relationship with yourself.
	And I just wanted to compliment you again on writing that email because I thought it was moving to me.
	And it is...
	I really do understand what a difficult thing that is to do, so I just wanted to say how much I appreciated that again.
	Thank you very much.
	And was there anything that occurred that changed your mind about what it is that you had been doing that prompted this?
	I'm not sure. It's just sort of a general feeling of Sort of a general feeling I've been building up at a time.
	I I remember on YouTube I would I would sometimes get reply comments and When I was You know when I was wrong about something but kind of arrogant or insulting or or something like that and I I just feel horrible because not not only did I not only was I wrong but I I insulted the person on top of that.
	And I would dread going to my, checking my comments.
	And I still kind of do on my YouTube account, which I haven't been to for many, many months.
	Right, right. So it was sort of just a growing feeling of what?
	Again, if you don't mind me asking, what was the growing feeling that you think prompted this change?
	Just that, um, it's a bit hard to explain.
	I'm sure it is, and I take your time.
	I appreciate it. It's a very difficult thing to put into words.
	I mean, I can keep asking questions or my usual annoying Socratic endless nonsense, or I don't want to interrupt you if you're about to say.
	Well, if you could keep asking questions, maybe I could figure that out.
	Absolutely. Okay. There's something that anybody who does any kind of work on the internet deals with.
	Whether you're in that category or not, I don't know.
	But it's generally what you call trolls, right?
	And again, that's a simplistic way to put it with regards to you, but I'll just use that so that I don't have to keep saying the things that you did that were disruptive.
	If you don't mind, just accept the label for the conversation and we'll see whether it fits or not in the past, if not the future.
	And it's something that has puzzled me for years.
	And I have a tough time I have a tough time understanding it, and that doesn't mean that, you know, it's me good, you bad, or me good, Charles bad.
	I mean, I really genuinely have a tough time understanding it.
	And the way that I've tried to formulate it in my own mind, and you can tell me if it, you know, makes any sense or not, is that there seems to be, or the sense that I get is a very, very deep, fearful feeling And it's almost an interstellar kind of isolation from people, a separation from people.
	I mean, I think it was not the last Sunday show, but the show before, there was some people who called in with some pornographic comments and things like that.
	And I can understand...
	I really can understand the excitement and the fun of that kind of stuff.
	Like, I really can. I don't think people are just crazy who do that, right?
	I mean, they're getting a payoff, right?
	They get to shock people that, you know, they know that they're alive because they're having an impact on people and then people are reacting or responding.
	There's a shock value and so on.
	Exactly. Yeah, and so, but it seems to me that there's, you know, below that sort of level of giddy engagement and excitement and anger and self-righteousness, which I understand.
	I think. I mean, I think we all have that, right?
	But I think underneath that, there has always seemed to me to be a real kind of loneliness.
	Like, if I try to interact with people in a positive way...
	I'm sorry about that.
	Sure. If I try...
	Okay.
	Come on. If I try to interact in a positive way with people, I'm not going to be interesting.
	No one's going to be interested in talking to me if I'm interacting in a positive way, but I can get people to engage with me if I interact in a negative or destructive way.
	It's difficult, let's say.
	It's too strong. Well, people usually didn't interact with me, at least when I was trying to say something intelligent positively.
	Maybe with the exception of the few people I talked to on MSN. But everyone else.
	Sorry, you were saying that they did not respond to you if you said something positive or something constructive?
	Right. And was that on YouTube or elsewhere?
	Yeah. I would say something that...
	I thought was really intelligent, that I was kind of proud of, that I had that moment where I could make a really intelligent comment.
	I don't mean like maybe insulting someone with a bad pun or something like that.
	Yeah, but something really smart, an insight, something insightful.
	And then I checked back in the video to see if anyone would acknowledge that.
	A lot of the time no one would.
	Right. No, and I think it's really interesting what you're saying.
	And I think, because I've always sort of felt that there's also this, it's a bit of lashing out for being ignored, if that makes any sense.
	Does that sort of fit with what you're saying?
	Yes. I've certainly always got the same thing from my parents.
	Kind of like... It's strange.
	It's kind of like a half-assed encouragement that I always got from them.
	It's like kind of, you know, it's okay if you fail kind of encouragement.
	It's okay if you fail.
	Right. Okay. Go on.
	Sorry. My thoughts just went off in 12 million different directions, and I want to make sure I keep focusing on what you're saying.
	So sorry if you could just continue.
	Okay. Yes.
	Well... That was kind of it.
	I didn't have a... I'm not sure where to go from there, but it's just...
	It's one of those kind of, I guess, muddying the water sort of thing where parents aren't completely 100% evil, but there seems to be this thing like...
	My father, when I talk about...
	About a career to get into.
	He'd always say something like, you should get into heating and air conditioning.
	It would be a really easy job.
	Work for train and install air conditioners.
	It pays well.
	It's an easy job. Things like that.
	Things that blatantly insult my intelligence.
	Well, sorry, let me ask you just to be precise.
	I mean, you could, obviously, what do I know about your family?
	But just logically, do you think that he knows that you're intelligent, but is insulting it?
	it or do you think that he doesn't know that you're intelligent?
	Hmm.
	I, I, I don't know.
	And the reason I bring that up is it's an important distinction, right?
	Because if somebody comes up to me and says, you're a shitty flamenco dancer, Right?
	It's like, except for the outfit, I agree with you, right?
	Because I don't flamenco dance, right?
	So they're obviously misinforming, right?
	Right. They're misinformed, and so they're not insulting anything that is actually attached to me, right?
	They're attaching to something else.
	Somebody walks up to me on the street when I'm out in my track pants and says, I really hate your dress.
	I can't really take it personally because I'm not wearing a dress, at least not over my clothing, right?
	So the question is, is it an insult to your intelligence like he sees it and says, you think you're smart, but you're not, and he has a deep awareness, even if it's in a nasty way, of your intelligence, or is he just not really aware of it and is just saying this stuff without really knowing your level of intelligence?
	Alright. Well, I do...
	He has...
	Well, not of course, but he has read things that I wrote.
	Maybe essays, for example.
	When I first started going to homeschool for the first few years of that, I had him helping.
	Me with my homework all the time.
	When you were homeschooled? Yes.
	And who was homeschooling you?
	I was taking online classes.
	And, sorry, when was this in your life?
	I'm not sure exactly how old I was.
	6th through 8th grade.
	So 6th through 8th grade, you were not in class with other kids?
	Oh, I was from 6th Sorry, from sixth grade on to graduate, high school graduation, I was in that homeschooling program.
	From sixth to eighth grade is when I was having my dad help me with my homework all the time.
	And why were you in that program rather than in school?
	Well, at the last year of school I was I was being, of course, picked on a lot, and I was incredibly angry all of the time.
	Sorry, the last year of school being the last year before you were pulled out?
	Oh, sorry, yes.
	Okay, sorry, I just wanted to check.
	So fifth grade, sorry to keep interrupting, I just always want to make sure I get the sequence right.
	So from kindergarten through to fifth grade, you were in a public school, is that right?
	Yes. And based upon your YouTube name, some weird gay guy, you were being picked on, was it because you were gay, or was it because of something else, do you think, or some combination of a bunch of things?
	Well, I wasn't aware of that at the time, so I was a bit young for that.
	Well, but I mean, from what I've heard from, you know, there's no universal gay experience, of course, right?
	But what I've heard from some gay people is that, you know, they knew that they were different.
	They didn't know, obviously, in what way, but they felt that they were different from...
	From other boys, and I don't know if that was your experience or not.
	I, so this is kind of going maybe off track a bit, but I was, well, you're not.
	I was, my parents are Jehovah's Witnesses.
	So I feel, in a sense, I felt different in the sense that I was convinced of my superiority, I guess, based solely on The virtue of being a Jehovah's Witness, I guess. But being the chosen, right?
	The people who get into heaven, right?
	Right. The Jews of America, something like that.
	Right. And the gays are the Jews of the Jehovah's Witness, right?
	Anyway. No, and look, I mean, with all seriousness, I mean, the group...
	In many ways that I feel the most sorry for, and I don't mean sympathetic, but I mean, great deal of sympathy for are, you know, gay men and women born into fundamentalist Christian households have a shitty time.
	I mean, in so many different ways.
	I mean, it is the ideology of, the superstition of Christianity is Anti-gay to the core, at least in the Old Testament and to some degree in the New Testament as well.
	And it's really, really rough to wrestle with that in that environment.
	It is. I've talked about this quite a lot with my partner.
	I lost it a little bit.
	But they always...
	They always attempted to isolate me.
	My father would, usually just through propaganda rather than, you know, physical force.
	But, like, my father would, he would always say things like, you know, you don't need friends.
	He would tell me these horror stories about his childhood when his, oh, excuse me, when his Horrible friends would come over to play with him and they'd break his toys and then they'd go home and then he wouldn't have any toys, but their friends would have their toys at home and all that sort of thing.
	Right, so he's sort of getting swarmed by these thuglets or these little kids who break his toys and then they have the toys and he's left with none and so on.
	Right. Of course, the people of the world are so evil and of the devil and all of that sort of thing.
	And so he meant, sorry, he meant the kids in that.
	Like, I'm trying to figure out what the moral of that story is.
	The moral of the story is that the kids who aren't part of our Jehovah's Witness program are evil and all that.
	Is that the moral of the story?
	Yes, exactly. Wow.
	Okay. Sorry, go ahead.
	Even when I was when I was very little I had one friend Which would be my last for a very long time until about 19.
	This was before kindergarten and I remember that I got into an argument with him about the the validity of the King James Bible Versus the New World Translation, which was the Jehovah's Witness text and nothing sort of just on the No, you're wrong.
	No, you're wrong. That sort of thing.
	I don't want to have anything jump into that.
	Sorry, this was a conflict that you had with your best friend, you said, up until about the age of 19.
	And how old were you when you had this conflict?
	I'm sorry.
	I skipped ahead a little. I skipped a few things.
	Oh, good. Okay, because I didn't want to feel like I was lost for no reason, but sorry, go on.
	I had talked about this recently, so I got a little confused, but he was my friend up until he entered kindergarten.
	And then it kind of went steadily downhill, but, well, it It went downhill very rapidly and then it got a bit steady until the point where it just stopped talking entirely.
	Why did it go downhill?
	I don't know.
	I can't quite pinpoint why that was.
	I'm sorry, how old were you when it began to go downhill?
	He was a year older than me, so that would be a year before I entered kindergarten.
	And I'm not sure exactly what age that would be.
	Right, okay. So it was pretty early on, and you say that it went down, it stayed at a sort of steady level, and then what happened?
	And then it dropped off entirely, and then eventually we moved to another city, or another little town, so there was kind of Absolutely no chance of regaining that.
	At that point, I wasn't in, I guess, the right emotional frame to where I would have if I had the chance at that time to start that relationship over again.
	Sorry, when you said he was your best friend, did you mean your only friend or one of a few?
	My only friend. Okay.
	Okay, so you tried to make it in public school, but you were made fun of a lot.
	And what were you made fun of for, if you don't mind me asking?
	Oh, being overweight.
	Sometimes because I wore glasses, but I didn't really take that one very seriously, and it was pretty rare.
	I didn't bathe very often, so I was a bit aromatic.
	And sorry, you're talking about when you were a little kid, right?
	Yes, when I was a little kid.
	Right, so that would probably be more along the lines of you weren't bathed that often, you just decided not to bathe yourself, right?
	I mean, I think that's important, right?
	Because otherwise it's an I did something rather than You know, like if there's no food in the house, you don't say, I chose not to eat, right?
	Or if there was, you know, too much food in the house within my reach, you know, then I overate.
	I mean, if you were stressed and fed bad food and had access to junk food and restricted from exercise because you had to massage your mother's feet, oh, I don't know, just making stuff up, right?
	But if there were all of those things, you wouldn't just say, well, I mysteriously became overweight, right?
	Yeah. Something that would be more done unto you, if that makes sense.
	Even after the point where my parents had stopped bathing me when I was old enough to take on that myself, I still maybe only once a week or something like that.
	And that wasn't quite enough.
	Probably wasn't even close to enough.
	But it's also something that That your family is supposed to help you with, right?
	Right, right. And look, I say this as a guy who went through that, right?
	I mean, kids don't really smell that much, but man, when you hit puberty and you get those man glands, right?
	You get those hairy pits, you start to stink up something fierce.
	At least I did. And nobody in my family told me anything.
	It ended up being...
	I'm sorry? I'm sorry.
	Well, I was going to say that was before puberty.
	Right. But I'm just saying that it was actually somebody outside my family who ended up saying, listen, you've got to start using deodorant.
	And that kind of being comfortable for him.
	But it wasn't anything that I noticed.
	It wasn't anything that I didn't sit there and say, I look like, I smell like pig pen, but I'm fine with that.
	It's just, I was in so dissociated and so on at that age, I guess, 11, maybe 12 years.
	That no one had told me within my family and it just wasn't part of the...
	I remember when I had to learn how to shave, I had to learn from a magazine.
	I didn't even know how to shave and no one told me.
	So there is a bit of a wolf-child element and I don't want to put my experience into your life, but when you say I was smelly, to me that's not a child issue, that's a family, that's a parental issue.
	I remember after a while, after it would start getting kind of bad, they would complain to me, I'm going to go up and take a bath, or I don't know if I was taking showers at that point, but that's kind of relevant, I suppose. Just kind of like I should have known better.
	No, I understand, right?
	Like, you should have enough respect for the family members to not smell, and they get kind of annoyed, is that what you mean?
	Right, right. Like, you should know better than to stink up the place like this.
	Again, I'm putting it harshly, but...
	Yeah. Yeah, pretty much.
	And why didn't you bathe?
	Right, that's an important question, and I think that it's a very important question, because it's the first thing that you've brought up in this context.
	Yeah. Um...
	I still to this day kind of have a bit of trouble with it.
	Fortunately, I don't really smell that badly, even when I'm exercising and sweating.
	I like walking up to gay guys and sniffing them, so you would be a real exception because they just smell so pretty.
	Let me tell you, it's like putting your face in a bag full of summer wind.
	It's just beautiful. But you may be an exception, so that's a good thing to know.
	Okay. So, yeah, why?
	I mean, I think it's a really important question.
	And I think it's somehow related to the topic that you put in the email.
	I have no idea how, because this is all just nonsense amateur hour, but I think it's an important question.
	Well, there was an anomaly to this, one time where I didn't have trouble bathing.
	And it was a time after we, well, I guess you get a little history, After I moved out of the original complex in which I had grown up to about 11 years old, I moved to another...
	Sorry, you said I moved out? I'm sorry, you're right.
	We, the family...
	No, but it's interesting, right?
	I mean, the isolation is even in the language you're talking about.
	It. And this is just something to notice in yourself, right?
	Because we started off talking about this isolation.
	I'm not trying to pick apart every syllable, but you said, I think twice, I moved out.
	And of course, you were moved out by your family, right?
	I mean, it was a we, for sure.
	But anyway, sorry. I didn't have any choice in the matter, but we moved to another town.
	My parents bought a house that was Because of my father's problems with his student loans, he had to get a new job every year and the house ended up being well beyond their means to pay for.
	Sorry, his trouble with his student loans?
	What, did he have 12 doctorates?
	I mean, what does that mean? No, it's far sleazier than that.
	My father, he won't be a truck driver, and so he went to a truck driving school, and he took out a student loan for $5,000.
	The truck driving school closed a couple of days before he was to get his commercial driver's license.
	And then he decided that because he did not get his commercial driver's license, that he should not have to pay for the student loan.
	And instead of getting a lawyer or talking to the company about it or just paying the $5,000, he decided it would be a better option to not pay the loan altogether.
	And later he discovered that what happened is that the student loan company would go to court and After a while,
	they would garnish his wages, which would force him to pay back the student loan, and so then he would quit that job, and then he'd go to another one and work there until the point where they would go to garnish his wages, and then go to another one, et cetera, et cetera.
	Right. Right.
	Okay, so... Okay, but yeah, go on.
	I mean, I have a thought about that in your bathing, but we'll come back to that, so go on.
	And we lived in the Beyond Their Means house for about two years with my grandmother, which caused a great deal of conflict, which is such a long story.
	So we'll skip over that for now.
	Well, eventually she moved out.
	And then we moved to the...
	We moved to the country.
	And we lived there for three years.
	They bought a five-acre piece of farmland and built and had a trailer put on it.
	And it was about an hour's drive to the near...
	well, not the near city, but to the major city, and probably maybe about 30 minutes to the closest town that actually had civilization in it.
	We lived there for three years, and then we moved back into the city.
	It was a suburb.
	I'm sorry to interrupt you.
	Yes. But I think you're not making the wisest use of our time together.
	And I say that, you know, very gently, just because the roadmap, you know, I feel like in one of those movies, you know, where they're going across Europe, and you're seeing the line go from city to city to city, right?
	But I'm really trying to sort of get why you weren't bathing, not where you moved, if that makes sense.
	Right, right. Sorry about that.
	No, no, no problem at all. I just wanted to point that out.
	We lived in this really beautiful apartment.
	And I had my room, I had my own big bathroom, and it had a fitness center where I went.
	I started going, and sometimes I would go twice a day and do really vigorous exercising.
	And roughly how old were you at this point?
	About 16 or 17.
	And then, at that point, I was bathing daily.
	And I lost about 30 pounds.
	Well, and probably more than that, given that you were converting fat to muscle, right?
	Yeah. Or muscle's much heavier than fat, so you probably lost 40 pounds or more of fat.
	But anyway, okay. So then when you had some autonomy and you had some pride in your appearance, at least, and you wanted to become fitter and leaner or whatever, then you were bathing every day in someone, right?
	Yes. Yes, I was.
	Okay. So from the dawn of time, your time, until 16, why weren't you bathing?
	It was just a kind of...
	It was always kind of an unpleasant experience somehow.
	It's not that I didn't enjoy it.
	I felt better afterwards and I enjoyed cleaning myself, of course, but I always hesitated.
	There's always something that I'd rather do.
	I'd rather play a game or watch a television show or sit and stare at the wall or anything than Then take a shower or that.
	Your family situation...
	I mean, I think I understand what you're saying.
	Your family situation sounds quite driven and chaotic, right?
	I mean, that you say your father's moving to avoid his student loans and, you know, gets involved in the company without checking its longevity or whatever.
	I mean, that's a big investment, obviously, if it's important enough for him to keep moving jobs then, right?
	So your father's disorganization and...
	Theft, right? I mean, if you take out a loan, you don't pay it back.
	You might as well have just stolen something from someone's house, right?
	I mean, that's real income that someone's losing, right?
	Except it's kind of worse than that because he didn't even get the money.
	He gave it all to the school that closed.
	Well, but that's nothing to do with the people who lent him the money, right?
	Right, exactly. I mean, you know, that's a life lesson, right?
	I mean, so...
	How did he square, thou shalt not steal with not paying back a loan?
	Just the defense that I just gave you.
	Oh, well, I shouldn't have to pay it back because I didn't get what was promised to me.
	That's neither here nor there, right?
	I mean... That doesn't matter.
	There was nothing in the clause of the loans that he signed that said, if you don't get your degree or you don't get to be a trucker, then you don't have to pay this back, right?
	He knew that going in. You can't make the rules up later, right?
	Exactly. So, respect for your father in regards to this matter, and this is probably just one of a billion because of the religiosity, Respect for your father probably did not hit a big peak as a result of you having to move all the time because your father was dodging his creditors,
	right? Well, not when I hit 14 and I hit that kind of adolescent thing where everything becomes clear and I get incredibly depressed because Well, because of the things listed beforehand, I guess I always gravitated towards my father more than my mother.
	I would make a suggestion here that is a complete pitch in the dark.
	Complete pitch in the dark.
	When you were a kid, let's say six or seven years old, Were you at all aware, I'm not saying completely, but were you at all aware that when you were still in school that your family was different from other families?
	Yes. Okay.
	Did you talk to anyone about that difference or ask questions?
	Or did anyone ask you? I remember vaguely Being asked about the Jehovah's Witness thing like everybody kind of knew it and I remember that I wasn't I wasn't supposed to you know take part in the Valentine's Day things or or or the the Christmas or Halloween a cup holiday.
	Yeah, pagan nonsense, right?
	Yeah Okay, and I read I also remember during Valentine's Day.
	I would I would sit in the room and people would Give me Valentine's and would give me gifts and that sort of thing and I had the trash can under my desk and I would throw them away in front of them.
	Right, okay. So you knew that your family was different, but the society that you were in, right?
	I mean, did you go over to other kids' houses at all?
	No, no.
	I wanted to, but I didn't think my parents would approve of something like that.
	Okay. I'm going to put forward a theory, which is nothing but a theory, right?
	And, you know, if it gives you some goosebumps, maybe it's worth exploring.
	If it doesn't, then just toss it aside as, you know, internet rambling nonsense.
	But I'm going to put forward a theory here, and you can tell me what you think.
	I think that children communicate very powerfully.
	I think that you can repress a child In any way that you want, but the truth is going to come out.
	The truth is going to be communicated in some manner or another.
	And my guess is that you didn't bathe because you wanted help.
	Right? Because you smelled up the school because you wanted to communicate that your mind was rotting.
	That you were in desperate circumstances.
	That you were in a cult.
	That you wanted to communicate that and you couldn't say it.
	But your body could say it.
	Your body could say, I'm in enormous distress here.
	I need help.
	I need society to step in and do something here.
	Will somebody notice that I'm smelly?
	I'm not saying any of this was conscious, right?
	Which, again, I know that there's no way to prove it or anything.
	This is just something to explore within your own mind.
	I would never underestimate the degree of communication, brilliance, and intelligence that we have as children.
	I say this as a dad, right?
	So, I mean, my daughter's...
	Smarter than I am in so many ways.
	She is technically and statistically a complete genius at the moment just because she's learning so much so quickly.
	And she communicates very clearly with no language.
	Very clearly. I believe that we have that capacity for full body communication.
	We all know 90% of communication is non-verbal.
	So when a child is not allowed to say something, the body enacts what the child can't say.
	Sometimes that's weight gain.
	Sometimes that's bad clothing.
	Sometimes that's body odor.
	Sometimes that's an awkward hunched geeky posture.
	Sometimes that's inappropriate social gestures.
	Laughing at the wrong time.
	Getting angry at the wrong time.
	All of these are ways of saying I'm in distress.
	I'm in significant distress.
	And this is the only way that I can communicate it.
	And the reason we do that as children is that we want to know when we're children, is there anybody out there who can hear what my body is saying?
	Is there anybody out there?
	Because if there's nobody out there that we can build a bridge to to get some help in our family situations, then it's better not to try because we're going to get so fucking depressed.
	That we won't be able to get out of bed if we realize that there's nobody in the world who's going to help us.
	So we put out these smoke signals, we put out these drumbeats in the jungle, a way to try and communicate, to float up a balloon, a trial balloon, to say, does anybody notice that I smell?
	Does anybody care that I smell?
	Is anybody curious why I smell?
	Is there anybody out there?
	Or do I live in the land of the dead?
	Do I live in the land of the self-absorbed?
	Do I live in the land of the course of careless people who only say that they care?
	Do I live in the land of myopic, selfish people who won't reach out to take a child's hand and say, what are you telling me with this smell?
	What is in your life?
	That this is how you are in the world.
	What is in your family?
	That this is how you are in the world.
	How are you not loved?
	That this is how you are in the world.
	Because you see, the YouTube posts are just another form of body odor.
	The chatroom comments is just another form of body odor.
	It's a way of saying, is there anybody out there Who gives a living shit about my experience as a child, about who I am and where I am as an adult, about the path that put me in this place, about the people who pushed me into this place, about everything that I didn't learn as a child, every true thing that was withheld from me, every false thing that was inflicted upon me.
	Does anybody care?
	Is there anybody out there who gives a shit?
	Or is it all just words and games and shallow, shiny bullshit?
	I don't know. That's the thoughts that I'm having.
	Whether they make any sense to you or not, I don't know.
	Well, they do make a lot of sense.
	Because the answer to that question that I was asking would have been no.
	No.
	There wasn't. At least I didn't meet them.
	No, I'm sure that they weren't.
	Because if they were, you would remember that person more than you would remember yourself.
	Because that person would have given you something like yourself.
	Actually, I do remember someone who worked with my mother.
	He was the IT guy.
	He really wanted me to spend the day with him.
	Unfortunately, I didn't get to spend the whole day with him because he was busy, but I remember he did get the chance to tell me something that stuck with me for many years.
	He told me to never trust magic.
	There's always a reason behind something.
	And to never be satisfied with that answer, just saying it's magic.
	You know, that's Scooby-Doo philosophy, but that's not a bad thing for a kid to hear, right?
	Well, you only had a few minutes.
	Yeah, no, no, listen, I know.
	But at least somebody was saying something to you that was meaningful, that had some depth, that had some impact, that had some utility.
	At least you could sit there and think about that as saying, well, maybe empiricism beats superstition, right?
	That's something, something, right?
	I mean, and the reason, I mean, I'm sorry to keep talking and I'll shut up in a minute or two, but I just wanted to point this out because, I mean, I've been taking my daughter for the last couple of days to the library because they have a play area and there are other kids and, you know, it's nice for her to get out of the house and so on.
	She really likes the play area, so we've been taking her.
	And, oh my God, it's terrible.
	It's terrible. I mean, The kids are nice, the play area is nice, and it's a fairly classy neighborhood, so we don't have homeless people eating their own toes in the corner or anything.
	But I swear to God, I'm the only parent who's in there playing, right?
	I mean, Isabella goes down to play, I will go down to play with her.
	There have been kids who, every time I've gone, there are A number of kids who just glom on to me.
	They just glom on to me.
	And I don't know where the hell their parents are.
	You're not supposed to leave your kids unsupervised in the library.
	I ask them, where are your parents?
	Oh, he's at the computer or he's yet to take a phone call and they're gone for like an hour.
	And they just kind of come back.
	There are parents sitting in a ring around.
	Some of them are, I don't know, on their iPods or some of them are reading magazines.
	One of them was napping.
	And some of them are talking to each other.
	And what they do is they talk to each other and they just bark these commands at their kids, right?
	Put that down. Just share.
	Just share. Don't make me come over there.
	Put that away.
	Don't pull that out. Don't grab that from him.
	It's just a constant stream of just commands.
	And I mean, I'm down in there playing with Isabella and the kids, I feel like I'm being swarmed.
	Like, oh my god, there's an adult here who actually is interested in his kid and who wants to play with his kid.
	Now, I don't want to paint these parents with too broad a brush because I've only been a couple of times and I don't know their backstories.
	But to me, it's just...
	There's such a loneliness for adult company.
	There's such a loneliness for adult interaction.
	There's such a loneliness for...
	Being loved in kids.
	It's tough.
	I mean, I feel really bad. I want to go and play with my daughter, but there are all these other kids who want my attention.
	There's a lot of loneliness in childhood.
	A lot of loneliness. A lot of feelings of rejection.
	A lot of feelings like you have to really woo your parents, which is crazy.
	You shouldn't have to woo your parents.
	Anyway. So, I just wanted to point out that, I mean, this is partly why I've been thinking of this stuff, because it is, I mean, this is a good neighborhood, these are educated people, and it's like, I don't understand, why the fuck would you have the children if you don't want to get on the floor and play with them?
	I don't understand that.
	It's like marrying someone and then going to live in another country.
	Well, that could have to do with immigration, Max.
	Yeah. Good dodge, my friend.
	A little joke will prevent the feeling.
	But all that sounds incredibly familiar.
	My mother, she was an on-site manager, and sometimes she would go to other apartment complex for God knows what reason, or I guess God doesn't know, because it doesn't exist.
	But she would drag me along and I would sit there in these offices for just hours and hours and hours and hours and being, well, it's just being bored to death and listening to the worst 90s rock and just playing in the background.
	And in the transitions of me driving home with her, those were the good memories that I had with her.
	And Not of her playing anything, doing anything with me.
	I could never get her to do anything with me.
	So she didn't play with you?
	No. I don't remember her ever doing that.
	My dad was the only one who would just play a video game or two with me or color with me or something like that.
	But even that was not a whole lot of that.
	And that's not quite the same as playing with you, if that makes any sense.
	Like sitting there playing a video, it's not bad, it's just it's not quite the same as playing with you, right?
	Yeah, it's... Like watching a movie with a friend is not the same as going out for dinner or face-to-face talking.
	And there's nothing wrong with going to see a movie, but it's just not quite the same.
	Right. And having that is the only thing.
	Right. Right.
	Right. Right.
	See... When kids are angry, and I know we're jumping around a lot, but I'm trying to pick up on the stuff that you said earlier, right?
	Because you said that you were taken out of school because you were angry.
	And that's not even remotely true as a statement, but we can get back to that if you like, in my opinion.
	When we grow up with this ache of loneliness and invisibility and emptiness in our familial environments, And you had the additional pressure of crazy superstition inflicted upon you.
	We get angry at the world more so than we get angry almost at our parents, if that makes any sense.
	And the metaphor for me would be if I'm a kid and there's some Dog that's growling at me and menacing me, and there's some big man who could lift me over a hedge, and the big man doesn't lift me over the hedge.
	Who am I more angry at?
	The dog or the man?
	I suppose he'd be more angry at the dog.
	I wouldn't be more angry at the dog.
	I would be more angry at the man who was refusing to help me.
	Now, maybe I don't want to, again, this is my feeling, because the dog's just a dog, right?
	I can't blame the dog. The dog's just a dog.
	But the man is the one who can see and observe and has the ethics of the situation and is more objective and is outside this immediate interaction, right?
	Now, you sound completely unconvinced, and maybe I'm wrong, and I don't want to just drive on like you haven't been convinced.
	And I'm not saying that this is the final answer, but I'm saying that I would be more angry at the man who wasn't saving me when he could do so quite easily, rather than the dog who was menacing me.
	You're right. I wasn't unconvinced to just...
	You don't like where it's going?
	Stop! I've got to be indifferent since you pause.
	No, no, I just...
	Sometimes I'm not sure what to say.
	Well, just be honest. I mean, if you don't think that it's true, then, you know, my metaphor doesn't work and we'll find something else and whatever, right?
	So just be honest.
	I mean, if you would be more angry at the dog, that's fine.
	But you at least would have some anger at the man, right?
	Well, just thinking how...
	Just trying to think back to when I was a child...
	I probably, the man would probably be saying how evil and horrible the dog is and try to make me angry with the dog rather than him or him.
	Ah, right.
	Right. Well, I'm really glad we paused then because that's very, very important.
	And then you would end up being angry at the dog in a sense, but I mean, obviously in an objective way, you'd be more angry at the people who were blaming you.
	Right. Okay, okay.
	So, the secondary backup theory, right, is that...
	Because you're acting out against the world, right?
	At least you were up until a couple of weeks ago in this context, right, of this show or whatever.
	Again, I don't want to speak about your whole life, of course, right?
	But you were acting out against the world, right?
	And that has to be based upon the premise that nobody is innocent, right?
	Everybody who you piss off or insult or confuse or baffle or annoy or whatever you do, right?
	That everybody who you do that to has got it coming because nobody is innocent, right?
	Right. Now, where would the child...
	Sorry, go ahead. I wouldn't have insulted them if they were...
	If they were innocent, I don't think I would at least.
	No, you wouldn't have. There is a moral theory that justifies everything.
	That's the basis of UPB. There is a moral theory that everybody has to use to justify their actions.
	You have a moral theory.
	I'm not saying it's conscious. But you have a moral theory that justifies what you do.
	And that moral theory has to be something like, nobody is innocent.
	Which is why you can lash out at Anonymous.
	Anybody, you don't know who these people are, right?
	But everybody is guilty.
	And I sympathize with you.
	I really, really do.
	I sympathize with you from that perspective very strongly.
	Because when you think about what happened to you as a child, and how everybody ignored the fact that your parents were religious crazies, that You smelled that you were pulled out of school.
	Nobody chased you down and found out what the hell was going on at home all those years.
	And you moved from place to place, so you had exposure to a lot of people, right?
	It wasn't like you were just in one backwards cave, right?
	No, I was in several caves.
	Yeah, several caves, right?
	I kind of just huddled in.
	I huddled in those kids, with the exception of living out in the country, which I was forcibly just away from everyone.
	Even though I was going older and feeling more lonely, I really didn't have a choice at that point.
	Right. So you went through a huge degree of distress as a child.
	Lots of people knew you as a child and couldn't help but notice to some degree that you were going through distress, even if all they did was find you smelly, right?
	And so given that nobody did help you, nobody did intervene, nobody did try to do anything, in your experience, who is innocent of the crime of not Reaching over the hedge and pulling you out.
	I don't mean out of your family, but I'm just giving you that sympathetic intervention.
	Even if they couldn't do anything about the actual situation, giving that sympathetic intervention.
	Who is innocent in that history that you've had?
	Who helped?
	who said anything you said no one right Right. And conversely, for the deficiencies in your upbringing that you were trying to communicate to the world, who said...
	His parents don't bathe him.
	We should do something. No, no.
	What do they say instead?
	You're smelly.
	Right? Right.
	You see the difference? Or it gets attention.
	Yeah, you would be punished.
	You would be punished for what your parents were doing.
	To you? So far as my parents told me, they wanted to...
	The reason that...
	One of the reasons that they took me out was because the school wanted me to be put on Ritalin.
	Right. Well, look, the Ritalin discussion is another vile piece of modern social crap, right?
	So we don't have to get into that right now.
	But rather than saying why are the children unable to concentrate, what's wrong with the family and school environment, right?
	It's easier to... Anyway, we don't have to get into that.
	That's a whole other topic and not one that's relevant to your history.
	I mean, it is, but it's not central, right?
	Right. But not only do children not get the help that they need based upon deficiencies within their parenting, but they're blamed for the effects of that.
	Right? Kids who were fat are fat, in my opinion...
	Largely because of dysfunction within the family.
	Parents who don't set boundaries.
	Parents who... Kids are stressed, right?
	There's this conflict between the parents.
	They eat. It's self-soothing, right?
	It's lots of complicated things, but it's not just because kids wake up one day and say, I want to put on 20 pounds, right?
	And so the kids, the bodies are communicating this distress, right?
	I'm overeating. Please, somebody ask me why.
	I'm overeating. Please, dear God, somebody ask me why.
	Somebody help me. And that's not what happens.
	I'm sorry? I said, after a while, I didn't even have to...
	I used to have to ask if I could have something extra.
	I'd always be, you know, told yes.
	But after a while, I didn't even have to do that.
	I just went to the refrigerator or the cupboard.
	Right, and you went to the refrigerator, I would say, for the same reason that you didn't bathe, because you want people to notice that you're not well, that you're not doing well.
	And instead, what happens to the kids who are overweight as a result of family stressors?
	What do the other kids do to them?
	I'm just attacked.
	Yeah, you're a fatty, fat-ass, right?
	Yeah. And so basically the children are saying to the other children or to the society or the family, sorry, to the society as a whole, the children are saying, look, I have a big wound on my arm here and everybody just comes along and takes a long slow piss into the wound.
	And then we wonder why people grow up angry at the world.
	To me it's not, I mean, knowing your history, I can't imagine it would be anything different for you.
	Why would you not be enraged at the world?
	It would be inconceivable that you wouldn't be, to me.
	It's hard to sometimes think about the anger that I took out on everyone and not blame myself for that.
	Well, look, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you shouldn't take responsibility for it, but I think you should be curious and sympathetic towards your own anger.
	That doesn't mean that you get to go scream at people, right?
	Because that's just reenacting what was done to you, right?
	But what you're trying to do is you're trying to say, look, I've got a shitload of unprocessed abuse that I'm going to keep inflicting on people until somebody stops pissing in my wound and gets me a fucking Band-Aid.
	I mean, the degree to which human beings do not ask each other, the degree to which human beings do not ask each other, how was each I mean, the degree to which human beings do not ask each other, how was your childhood?
	Where did you come from? What were your influences?
	Or look at present behavior and see it going like a tree root right into the center of the earth.
	They don't look and see this behavior going all the way down to the center of the earth, into the history, into the childhood, into the early experiences.
	Which, scientifically, is the case, right?
	I don't just make this stuff up, right?
	I mean, scientifically, this is the case, you know, that our brains are formed by these.
	It doesn't mean that they can't change, but it means it gets more challenging to change as we get older, right?
	And I don't think that...
	I know I haven't until this community, right?
	But I don't think that we live in a world where people say, where did you come from, and how did it influence you, and oh my god, that's terrible, or oh my I don't think you live in a world where people have sympathy for what you went through as a kid.
	I saw on television the other day people talking about how their parents quote-unquote disciplined them by doing horrible things to them and they'd just be laughing like they were reminiscing about a good movie they saw.
	The real tragedy and why people don't intervene is people think these people are talking about the past.
	They're not. They're talking about the future.
	They're talking about what they're going to do to their own kids.
	And that would make people want to intervene if they understood that.
	These people are not reminiscing.
	It's precognition.
	It's planning at that point.
	But I know it's a tough thing to do, but you're on the other side of the curtain now, right?
	I mean, you wrote me this email, and it's not like that's the only thing, right?
	But obviously there's other things going on in your life, but you're on the other side of the curtain now.
	You can't be that person who didn't write me that email or the person who didn't have this conversation, right?
	Which is not to say this changes your life or anything, but you're on the other side of the curtain now.
	So I think what you can do is you can look at yourself and say...
	What was I trying to communicate and why?
	Oh, I see.
	I see.
	Right?
	What you're trying to communicate is, I'm really, really angry at the world.
	Thank you.
	And then people will have one of three reactions to that usually.
	Either they'll dismiss you, and there's no response, right?
	Which is very provocative.
	Or they'll call you crazy, right?
	Oh, you're just an angry person, right?
	You're just a bitter and angry person, right?
	Or they'll ascribe it to some little thing, you know?
	Oh, you know, you didn't win the lottery, that's why you're angry.
	Whatever, right? They'll ascribe it to some little thing and basically say you're insane, right?
	Or they'll say, I believe that human emotion serves a purpose.
	I don't believe that human emotion attaches itself to You know, like a remora to a shark's jaw, just for the hell of it, right?
	I believe that human emotion serves a very real purpose and tells us very real truths about the world and our experience of it.
	And if you're angry at the world, I'm gonna go with the idea that you have damn good reasons to be angry at the world.
	And I'd like to know what they are.
	Because I don't think you're crazy.
	And I don't think it's nothing.
	I can't think of anyone I dislike enough to wish one tenth of one percent of your childhood on them.
	There's not enough hate in the world to wish that upon an innocent child.
	But that's what happened, right?
	And then you go through life, bouncing off this indifference and you're crazy, And not one simple set of open arms, right?
	To say, man, what happened to you is terrible.
	It's terrible.
	And you have every right to be angry at the world that has never said that to you.
	I haven't had a therapist.
	but it's essential on kind.
	I never really talked about my childhood.
	I'm just kind of dealing with the here and now, day to day sort of thing instead of getting to the roots of those things.
	Right, and this is the difference between a conversation like this and therapy, right?
	Most therapists, you know, what the hell do I know?
	I can't speak for most therapists, but in my opinion, most therapists, you know, on hearing the religious stuff, they won't have the philosophical clarity to know that that's just superstitious, bigoted, prejudicial cultism.
	She was a Baptist. Wow, so what the fuck is she going to know about religion clarity?
	She's not going to ask you about her childhood.
	Sorry, she's not going to ask you about your childhood because it's got something to do with her childhood, right?
	I can go there because I have the philosophical clarity to know that it was all just terrifying, vile lies that were poured into you.
	And I'm not saying that your parents sat there like evil Fu Manchu characters and, ah, we're going to lie about this.
	But the life unexamined is inflicted.
	And they didn't examine, and so they ended up inflicted, which is where you were heading, right?
	So, I mean, this is what's different, is that I think, I mean, I hope that I can bring, you know, the two things, moral clarity and sympathy, the two things I always try to bring to these kinds of conversations, moral clarity and sympathy.
	The moral clarity is, man, oh man, oh man alive, right?
	It was absolutely wretched.
	Your childhood was, I mean, I'd trade a year of my life to not live one day of your childhood.
	So moral clarity that it was wretched and to sympathy.
	Now, I think some therapists will bring the sympathy, I guess, but I don't know particularly what that means without the moral clarity.
	Lying is immoral and you don't lie to children about gods and ghosts and demons and hells and all that.
	You just don't. You just don't.
	Interesting. I thought my parents were above that because, you know, they told me that Santa Claus didn't exist and that the tooth fairy didn't exist and things like that.
	Oh, yeah. And eventually they told you that Zeus didn't exist, if you would ask as well.
	But that's just competing jobs.
	That's just competing gods, right?
	Not because they have any principles.
	They just don't like the competition.
	It's like when Hitler talks about the propaganda of everyone else.
	Oh, yeah. He's this competing propaganda he doesn't like, right?
	Like your parents say, well, all these other parents are really bad, right?
	Anyway, listen, I don't want to keep you up all night because it's my job, but it may not be yours, right?
	It's in the afternoon. Oh, it's afternoon.
	But listen, I mean, again, respectful of your time.
	Tell me what your experience of the conversation has been.
	It's been, well, it's been illuminating.
	It's going to take me some time to digest it and have it and get it to click.
	That usually does.
	You give me a lot of things to think about that I haven't before.
	Yeah, I mean, I get the sense that you're a pretty intellectual fellow, which obviously I'm not going to have any problem with, because that describes me to a T as well.
	But, you know, my suggestion would be that it may be a bit more of a feeling and remembering than a thinking, if that makes any sense.
	I mean, a thinking is useful and helpful, but, you know, we people with the double D cup's foreheads, right?
	I mean, we have to be careful that we don't Analyze and overthink, right?
	And then our souls turn to dust in our hands, which we then classify nicely as dust, right?
	Does your partner agree with me?
	Is that something that he may have experienced once or twice in the past?
	Is that right? Yeah.
	Don't let him just analyze it, right?
	It's a feeling thing, right?
	Get him to... Get some massages and talk to a reasonable atheist therapist who's going to help.
	But don't let them just say, ah, I think I've got it classified in my nice little box and we'll put it up there with the butterflies with the swords through their hearts and away we go into the future.
	Don't let them do that because this is a lot to deal with.
	It's sort of what I've been doing.
	Right. It has been, and it hasn't worked, right?
	Because, again, after a couple of weeks ago, you were trolling the internet, which is not, you know, which is, I think, I mean, again, I understand it, and I have sympathy for it.
	I really do. But not everyone is, not everyone is guilty.
	Well, I did stop trolling before that, but sometimes, you know, I throw in some insults to things.
	Usually not on the internet, because I haven't been online as much, but, you know, just kind of in private, oh, look at that asshole.
	Yeah. I don't know if he's an asshole.
	Maybe he is, but that sort of thing.
	I've been really trying very hard not to do that.
	Right, and that will work.
	There's no white-knuckle willpower thing that's going to change.
	Self-knowledge, self-understanding, sympathy for history, that is what changes lives.
	Not, well, I'll just You know, I'll put this big piece of rope between my teeth so I don't say anything, right?
	That's not going to be what's going to...
	You know, that's just white-knuckling stuff, and it doesn't really seem to work at all.
	In fact, people have...
	There's been studies done that people who try, you know, people who are paid to do better in a test and have a real incentive to do better in a test do worse than normal, right?
	Trying to do stuff is very often completely...
	You end up with the exact opposite.
	You maybe get very short...
	Bursts of efficacy, but then you always backslide and sometimes even worse, right?
	So, you know, you got to go in deep, you got to go into self-knowledge and figure out this anger you have towards the world without thinking that it's crazy, but without acting on it, right?
	That's the tough part. That's the ambivalent part, right?
	It's like, no, you're not crazy.
	You know, the world didn't fucking help you and that's really shitty.
	And there were lots of people who flowed through your life who didn't have a shred of sympathy for you and they damn well should have.
	And you were very clear about it in terms of the way you communicated it in very many ways.
	So it's completely, you've got a lot to be angry about, and to have sympathy for your own anger, to accept that your own anger is valid, and that there's a lot to be angry about in a world that lets that happen to a child that doesn't intervene in any way, even in a, I can't do anything but here's a pat on the shoulder and I get it, right? You've got a lot to be angry about.
	Be sympathetic towards that anger.
	That anger does tell you something very important about the world, but Lashing out isn't going to solve the problems.
	It's just going to make the problems worse for the next generation, so we all end up angry until the end of time, right?
	Then the sun gets angry and blows us all up or something.
	I'm no astronomer, but I think that's what happens.
	Well, isn't trying not to lash out, isn't that still the white knuckle willpower thing?
	No, no. Look, I mean, that's a completely excellent question, so I'm afraid I'm out of time.
	No, I mean, that's a great question.
	But I don't know if you've ever read or listened to, it's a free book I got called Real-Time Relationships.
	I'm halfway through it, I swear.
	Okay, I swear. Don't swear.
	I've read about a quarter of it so far.
	Okay, well, I mean, just keep plugging on it because the challenge there is like, sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you.
	The challenge there is, you know, let's say you have the urge to lash out at your partner.
	I know that nobody ever does that to somebody they're intimate with, but let's say that at some point in the future you did have that urge.
	You don't act out, right?
	You speak out, right?
	You say, I have a very strong urge to lash out at you right now.
	You don't act it out, right?
	You're honest about your feelings.
	I really feel angry.
	I really feel like I want to say something hurtful.
	That's an honest statement.
	So I'm not telling you to bottle it up.
	That's not healthy, right?
	But to act it out is not healthy, right?
	So you speak it out. You don't act it out.
	You say, this is what I'm thinking and feeling.
	This is my urge. This is my impulse.
	And I don't know why I'm feeling it, right?
	Because if you did know why, the impulse probably wouldn't be there.
	At least it wouldn't be so strong.
	So, you know, you can write a long YouTube comment saying, I really feel a strong urge to piss everyone off and engage them.
	Or you can come into the Sunday show and say, I really feel a strong urge to disrupt...
	The proceedings here, and I'm not sure why.
	Or you can call me on the Sunday show and say, Steph, you're really pissing me off.
	I've got the stronger I should do X, Y, and Z, and I don't know why, and we can talk about it, right?
	So I'm not saying pretend the feelings aren't there.
	I'm just saying be honest about the feelings, but don't act them out, because that's just a way of ignoring them.
	I understand.
	That is quite a big difference.
	I thought you totally cornered me there.
	I'm like, shit, I'm fucked. Oh wait, no, I do.
	I have a book about it. Yay! It's been a while since I read it, but I knew there was an answer somewhere.
	I've done some of that with my partner, but it's hard because I'm afraid that I'll be attacked for it.
	Of course, I never am by him.
	Yeah, but you might get attacked by yourself.
	That's real too, right? Well, I mean, again, I really, really appreciate you sending me that email, and I really appreciate your honesty and your openness in this conversation, because I've had a lot of curiosity about this, and it was completely selfish of me to want to satisfy my curiosity with you as the guinea pig.
	But I really, really do appreciate it, because, I mean, this doesn't answer everybody's questions about everybody who's difficult on the internet, but...
	It really has helped me to view those comments in a different light.
	And I'm sure that will help me in the future as well.
	Not your comments, but comments in general.
	I really appreciate that. Well, the appreciation is mutual.
	And do you mind to, I mean, is this an okay thing to have as a podcast?
	We didn't use any names or locations or anything, so I don't think anyone will know who you are.
	I can cut out your YouTube username if you care about that at all.
	Oh, no. I don't care about that.
	If anything, it'd give me more fame.
	Fame, baby! That's right.
	That's right. And I've got to tell you one other thing, just before we go, just so you'll appreciate this, I think, as an extral, that just at the very beginning of this conversation, I thought that you were going to start telling me about whatever, you know, X, Y, and Z, and then you were going to say something like, And then I want you to shove a sea anemone at my ass and suck my dick or something like that.
	I thought this thing might be a whole elaborate punk troll setup.
	Like this big letter of apology and then, you know, like all this.
	I thought, what if he's that genius a troll?
	Set this thing up for weeks, just so he can say some foul shit into my ear or something like that.
	And I thought, no, no, no, don't be paranoid.
	But it could happen, I'm just saying.
	Because there are people on the other Sunday show, they're stuck on the line for 40 minutes just to say some stupid shit.
	I thought, if he's truly an evil troll genius, if he's like the troll genius that he's got the Hydra with 12 heads or something, he will actually have planned this out that beautifully.
	And then I thought, get over yourself, you're not that important in the world.
	Anyway, I just wanted to point that out, that I thought that was a possibility.
	Unfortunately, my hairline has not receded quite enough for me to be that brilliant.
	Well, that's... Hey!
	No. That was a sea anemone.
	I think I felt that going up.
	Anyway, I really do appreciate your time, and do keep us posted, of course, and I hope that you, again, don't actualize and try and talk stuff out, and I think you'll be great, and I really do appreciate the time.

▲